Chapter Seventeen – Thursday, June 23^rd - Friday, June 24^th

 

Dear Auntie’s male devotees: Auntie implores you to try three techniques during the act of fidgeting the midget in Bridget. 1) Do ask your partner what feels best. Either or questions work well here. Examples: Do you like me licking this or that? Do you prefer touching here or there? 2) Find that g-spot, darlings. It’s worth the effort. For my gay readers, you’re well aware of your own g-spots and I applaud your expertise. And 3) Trim your nails. Please, please, please invest in a good nail trimmer or visit a manicurist before the event. She’ll love you for it. Truly.

-Aunt Piadora’s Beauty (and occasionally other types of things) Hints

 

Mary Grace couldn’t tell Brogan about Morgan Covington because she promised Jack she wouldn’t and the promise stuck in her craw like cheap seafood. However, Brogan would find out soon enough in the form of the DA informing the chief of police and so on down the ranks. Let Brogan tell me, she deliberated, trying to hedge her bets. I can act surprised. ‘It wasn’t Trey the second time? Oh, God, who was it? A little boy? Oh, no. How horrible. How awful. How dreadful. Can we have sex again? I like that one position where you had your hand on that certain spot.’

“Oh,” she groaned, reality smashing down on her like an older brother sitting on one’s face in order to let go a really rank stinker. I’ve got two stalkers. One who is interested in me only scientifically and one who wants me out of the way so his dad can be with his mom again. I’m a good girl. I shouldn’t even have one stalker. I always wash my hands after using a public toilet. I don’t pick my nose in public. And my underwear always matches. I don’t wear white after Labor Day, except the one time, and that was a special occasion, and besides no one got a picture.

Mary Grace sat on her porch with a large glass of white wine, glumly surveying the decimated oleanders and crepe myrtles. The BMW emblem was still embedded in the door frame. I’m kind of liking it there, she thought idly. I might leave it. It’s a statement. See world, I can be nearly blown up and here’s my thumb. And a raspberry. Plus thpppt. See, I’m sitting on my front porch, drinking a glass of wine, just daring someone to come by and shoot at me again.

“Oh, God,” she said abruptly, realization making her stomach cramp with distress. “I don’t have two stalkers. I have three.” Trey could have been the Friday night shooter, but he hadn’t owned up to it in his notes. In fact, he’d implied that Mary Grace was being paranoid and imaginative. Trey was being held for the three attempts, but they would have to drop some of the charges on Monday once Jack Covington and his ex-wife came forward with their son’s creative methods of parental reconciliation. She didn’t think Jack, Mallory, and Morgan were going to have a very nice week, but since the child was only five, they were going to skate past it. Trey’s week might be brightened a little once that little tidbit was aired. However, if Trey wasn’t the shooter, and Morgan wasn’t the shooter, then who the heck was the shooter?

A third person, Mary Grace answered herself silently. There was a third person she didn’t know about, a third person who really didn’t like her. ‘Die, Mary Grace, you little bitch.’ And there wasn’t anyone except maybe Callie she could tell. She couldn’t tell her mother because Ghita’s brain would probably rupture and blast into an uncountable multitude of enraged Catholic, Italian-American bloody, gory bits. Ghita dealt pretty well with one stalker. In fact, she had encouraged Mary Grace to fight it out, but the idea of telling her volatile mother about the second one, much less a third, unidentified one gave Mary Grace a case of the screaming willies.

She couldn’t tell Brogan. It was a logical thing not to tell him. How do I know Trey isn’t responsible for the BMW boom-boom? Because a five year old kid is. Oops. Can’t tell him that. Because the five year old has an alibi for the third attempt. Well, why can’t I blame the third one on Trey, after all, he was there that night? Because Trey would have admitted it in his notes and also, Trey wouldn’t have said, ‘Die, Mary Grace, you little bitch.’ Let’s face it. I’m sure Trey doesn’t have that in him. Look at his stupid, experimental notes. He’s a scientific moron, not a vicious, demented killer.

“But that’s a weak reason,” Mary Grace said. And should I mention that Deep Throat Mommy came to warn me again? She said I was still in danger. She implied that Trey wasn’t the one I was in danger from. She followed me because she doesn’t want me to be killed? This is giving me a headache.

The sun had set in the west, but the sky was full of purples and pinks that appealed to the artist in her. Several Peterson children were whooping it up in front of their house, an obvious game of kill-the-other-child-and-claim-his-college-fund. Mrs. Frasier was outside pruning her azalea bushes while Attila the tailless wonder sniffed around the various shrubs intent on watering each one with his own personal vintage. Mr. Lofts was sitting on his porch with his boyfriend again. Hellfire and damnation, bring the would-be shooter on, right now. There are lots of witnesses. They’ll testify, right after they bury my still-twitching corpse.

“How do I say to Brogan that not only do I know for sure that Trey didn’t blow up my rental, but I’m pretty darn sure that he didn’t try to shoot me, too? How do I tell him that a strange mommy with an adorable baby keeps coming to warn me about being in jeopardy? And then just as mysteriously disappearing?” Mary Grace took a gulp of wine. When she was finished with the white wine, she was going to try out some of the bottles she’d purchased from Goose Vineyards. They might be pro-cannabis, but they made a kicking merlot.

Then Brogan drove up in his plain, unmarked sedan and parked in front. Speak of the devil, she thought. Does he have a regular car? What kind of car does a Frederick Brogan of the Dallas Police Department drive? I’m betting a SUV. Something big. A truck. A big Ford pickup truck. Blue or black. He’s a blue or black, pick-up truck kind of guy. Mary Grace looked down at her empty wine glass. How many glasses have I had? Whoa, Nellie, it was more than one, and less than a hundred.

Brogan unraveled himself from the sedan and strolled up to her porch, his catlike grace evident in his long stride. Wow, she thought. I get hot watching him walk. When he stopped in front of her, she said, “Ford or Chevy?”

A chuckle came out of his mouth. “I don’t know exactly what you’re going to say, do I?”

“Well, that’s a company car,” she waved at the sedan. “So you’ve got to have a private vehicle. So I’ve got a private bet with myself. Ford or Chevy?”

“Ford,” Brogan answered carefully. “You in trouble today? Since Trey Unibrow is in jail, I would think you’d be yelling for joy. I’ve gotten past my mad. Life is good once again.”

“And would you like a glass of merlot?” She waved her goblet at him. Hah. A clever way of changing the subject before I mess up royally. “I have a lot of merlot.”

“Do you have beer?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Foster’s Lager or Saint Arnold’s Divine Reserve no. 5. That’s a stout beer. Microbrewery. My father drinks it. So it’s been here for a little while. Apparently, he can’t get it in Florida. I guess they won’t mail it via UPS.”

“Do you drink beer?” Brogan asked her.

Mary Grace was a little too buzzed to gauge his mood. He seemed to be acting a little strange. Had he heard about her mall eviction? Maybe. Evasive action. DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! “Sometimes. Sometimes I like a shot of whiskey, too. Mostly I sip a glass of wine now and then.”

“Not today,” he commented mildly.

“Not today,” she agreed. “You want a brew or not?”

“Oh, yeah, I want a brew,” he said firmly. “Foster’s. I’m not ambitious enough to try the Saint Arnold’s.”

When she got back to the porch, Brogan was sitting in her chair. “You want to sit in my lap?” he asked with a little leer.

Mary Grace smiled evilly. She really liked a challenge. Carefully juggling wine and beer, she slid into his lap, and made sure she rubbed across all the right places. Oh, MG, you shameless hussy. “What kind of Ford?”

Brogan enveloped her in his arms and planted a slow, hot kiss across her lips. Little tendrils of desire made like lightning bolts through her body. When he finally pulled away, the wine glass was shaking. “It’s an F-150. I missed you this morning,” he said. “We didn’t say anything about meeting today.”

Mary Grace considered those wonderfully poignant brown eyes. I knew it was a truck. “I didn’t want to seem pushy and you were somewhat aggravated with me yesterday.”

“You’re not pushy.” Brogan playfully shifted her in his lap, and she nearly moaned aloud. “As for the other, it seems like a moot point. No more mad killer on the loose with wire cutters, explosive devices, or guns. He’s very soundly locked away for the interim. So what did you do today? Since you’re out of the detecting business, that is, and no longer under a bodily death threat.”

“I went shopping,” she said. Not exactly a lie. No, I’m not lying. I’m just not sharing the rest of it. I did go shopping. I also got kicked out of a mall. Then I went to interrogate my boss about his murderous five year old son. I know something you don’t, or at least until Monday, and you’re not going to know that I know, unless I mess up and tell you anyway. Hah. Get that out of me, copper.

Brogan nipped at her neck. “Did you buy anything sexy?”

Mary Grace leaned into him. The heck with all this keeping secrets business. This is more interesting. His tongue played with the bit of flesh that melded neck with shoulder. He sucked for a moment and then kissed his way up her neck. One of his hands took the beer out of hers and put it on the little wrought iron table that sat beside the Adirondack chair they sat in. Then it came back and relieved her of her wine glass. On the third pass, it gently touched her breast and played with her nipple through her baby doll shirt. She pushed herself onto his hand, and ground her bottom onto his lap, reveling in the fervent growl that came from his lips.

“What was the question?” she asked weakly and after an indeterminate amount of time. “Oh, did I buy anything? No, the sales kind of…sucked. I don’t think I’ll be going to that mall again anytime soon.”

Brogan slipped one of the baby doll’s sleeves off her shoulder and nipped at her collarbone. He was too distracted by what he didn’t find to pay attention to what she was saying. “No bra today?”

“It’s a little hot,” she whispered. “And in case you have any more questions.” She deliberately rubbed her bottom against the hard ridge of flesh she felt under her. “I always wear matching bra and underwear.”

Brogan froze. “You mean you’re not wearing anything…?”

“Not a stitch.”

“Okay then,” he said agreeably, and carried her inside. Outside several neighbors sighed with amusement.

•

When Brogan woke up the next morning, he was thinking about Mary Grace. It wasn’t hard to do, since she was lying beside him, all feminine softness with the scent of a spicy perfume. Her blue-black hair was tumbled on the pillow, glinting prettily in the morning light. Her luscious lips pursed in a little pout. Perhaps he should have been embarrassed that one of her wonderfully formed breasts peeked out from the sheets and a candy-pink nipple was very nearly winking at him, but he wasn’t. Instead one curious finger of his hand reached out, briefly caressed the soft flesh into burgeoning hardness and then covered it reluctantly with a sheet.

The previous day he’d had to explain to Jason why the foyer table was overturned, and Brogan hadn’t liked feeling like a teenager who had gotten away with some naughty misdeed. But Jason, having caught the gist of the matter without Brogan actually having to be specific, had laughed. “On the hallway table, Dad? Way to go for an old dude.”

What is it about Mary Grace? Brogan twisted his lips. She was attractive, but she was also ditzy. Ditzy wasn’t the right word, however. Perhaps it was more that she lacked some kind of common sense that would have been readily apparent to Brogan. That little needy something appealed to him in a way that he wouldn’t have previously imagined. And she makes me really, really hot. I would have fucked her in the parking lot at the hospital if the radio hadn’t blared. What’s up with that? I mean, besides my dick?

Brogan was über-grateful that Mary Grace’s stalker had been apprehended. Trey Kennebrew wouldn’t have been his first choice for the bad guy, but he’d been caught red-handed with a confession in Mary Grace’s sweet little fingers. She might have broken into his house, but she was the one who supplied the motive for Kennebrew’s attacks. Certainly, Kennebrew owned up to the brake line job like the ninny he seemed to be; he didn’t even ask for an attorney when he’d let the brake-job info loose to the local police. But his notes were somewhat ambivalent about the other events. The Duncanville Police couldn’t find a .38 pistol to which Kennebrew would have had access. There were holes, but it seemed likely that the worst was over. Hell, three quarters of the cases he worked were left with holes. Life didn’t tie itself up in neat little packages with which detectives could work

And Jesus twitching eye Christ, the things Mary Grace can do. First, there’s her little exploit to Jack Covington’s house with her buddy. Then she romps over to Tinker, Texas to shake down a couple of vineyard owners simply because she thought their logo looked like the one on a mysterious note she’d gotten. She still hasn’t told me all the details about that, I haven’t forgotten. Then she’d gone back to brace her boss about the booby painting. Brogan chuckled quietly. Hell of a painting. I wonder if Covington would sell it to me. Finally, she breaks into Kennebrew’s house to see if she can come up with some evidence to convict him or clear him. Which she did. Thank God she’s not a cop or it would have been so inadmissible a judge would have thrown her in jail instead. Was I angry or what?

Brogan gently brushed a lock of that amazingly blue-black hair away from her incredible face. Life wasn’t going to be boring around her. Half the time he wanted to strangle her. Half the time he wanted to fuck her. His cock didn’t know whether it should get hard or haul ass into his body for protection. “Hey,” he said.

Mary Grace burrowed into the pillow and feebly waved her hand.

“Hey,” he said again. “I have to go to work, Mary Grace. I just wanted to give you a kiss before I went.”

“You can take a shower here,” she mumbled. “Oh, God, my head hurts. No more wine. If you bring me some Tylenol I’ll give you a B.J.”

Brogan laughed, knowing she was joking. However, his penis gave a lustful lurch that he thought was he was incapable of doing after the sexual jaunts of the previous two days. “So you were drunk and I seduced you,” he said instead. “Oh, I’m a bad boy.”

She shifted her body and peeped at him from the fringe of her hair. “I remember that part,” she said saucily. “On the kitchen table. On the floor. In the shower. Then it got kind of blurry. I think we’re going to have order condoms by the gross.”

Brogan leaned in for a quick kiss and backed out for the slap on her delectable bottom. “I can’t take a shower here, Mary Grace,” he said reluctantly. “I need my work clothing.”

“Okay,” she muttered. “Can you…”

The door bell rang.

Mary Grace’s head came up and she glanced at the clock on the night stand. “It’s 7 AM,” she said accusingly at the clock, as if it were at fault.

“Yep. Maybe that’s your mother,” Brogan said amicably. “She’ll probably grab a shotgun if she sees me here at this time of day.”

Mary Grace leapt from the bed and groaned. As she fell out of bed she realized she was naked, and grabbed for a robe. Incidentally it was his very favorite transparent in the light robe. Brogan stood by and grinned broadly. “Coffee?”

“Yes, God. Please, yes,” she muttered. “Lots of it. The grounds are in the freezer. The filters are above the coffee pot in the cabinet.”

The doorbell rang again. Someone really leaned on it this time.

Mary Grace stumbled toward the hallway and tried to ignore Brogan’s admiring stare. My God, he thought. What am I getting myself into?

•

Mary Grace tottered down the hallway and paused at the answering machine set in the telephone nook in the wall. There was large blinking ‘43’ on it. The previous day she had come home and turned off the ringer on the phone because she didn’t want to talk to her mother. She had also turned the power off on her cell phone. Naturally, and also somewhat unnaturally due to a massive intake of white wine, she hadn’t turned either device back on. “43?” she muttered. “Something’s wrong with the machine. Ma couldn’t have called me 43 times. Maybe ten. Then she would have just shown up. Besides she’s just letting me stew. 43?”

The bell rang again.

Mary Grace made it to the door and peeked out a side window to see several of her neighbors talking as they stood on her front porch. There was Mr. Lofts of the gay persuasion. Mr. Peterson was present without the obligatory brood. Mr. Poteet held a stack of what appeared to be newspapers in his arms. Mr. and Mrs. Flagg were laughing about something. They were all chatting amicably.

They’ve come to lynch me, Mary Grace thought. I committed some unpardonable faux pas. Did I have a visible panty line? My bra strap was showing when I wore a tank top last month? Oh, wait, they’re laughing. It’s not a lynch mob. Lynch mobs usually aren’t merry.

Mary Grace checked to make sure she didn’t have eye goop. She smoothed her hair a little and warily opened the door.

They all stared at her.

After a full and very uncomfortable thirty seconds, she said, “Did I forget a neighborhood watch meeting?”

Mr. Lofts giggled. He snatched a paper from Mr. Poteet and handed it to Mary Grace. “The metro section, dear. We’ll wait.”

There was an imminent sense of foreboding. Mary Grace looked glumly down at the newspaper she held. Any day that a group of neighbors came laughing to someone’s door with a handful of newspapers something was wrong. 43 messages on my answering machine, she thought unhappily. Maybe I should have listened to them before I came to the door.

The metro section of the Dallas Morning News was the second section. She put the headlines on the bottom and immediately saw that she was above the fold. Oh, I am so above the fold. Her eyes focused on the photograph first because it took up about a quarter of the page. “Oh, dear God above,” she prayed fervently. “Tell me this is a really wretched dream.” Then she pinched her arm and ascertained that it wasn’t.

The photograph was of Jack Covington’s portrait. In full glorious color. Except the editors had put a big, black bar across the nipples, so they could remain safely anonymous, she guessed. She felt like an animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. She couldn’t look away. Were they that big? And that pink? And just exactly who is going to be fooled by that large, black bar?

Finally, she glanced at the headline. ‘Duncanville Man’s Science Project.’ A brief look determined that someone had leaked the story about Trey Kennebrew’s bizarre dissertation experiment and how it had impacted the life of one Mary Grace Castilla. She was identified as a 28 year old graphic artist from Dallas. The story detailed the three attempts on her life and Trey’s arrest and confession to the brake-line job. There was a quote from Trey’s mother. There were quotes from several of Mary Grace’s co-workers. Ghita Castilla had stated firmly that her daughter, Mary Grace, was a good girl, and had not led the alleged, would-be murderer and doctoral candidate on. Finally, Mary Grace Castilla couldn’t be reached for comment.

Well, that explains one of those 43 messages, she thought.

Mr. Poteet grinned at Mary Grace and said, “I’d like an autograph. Right across the black bar, please.”

Brogan came up behind Mary Grace and looked over her shoulder at the article. “Holy Jesus on a pogo stick,” he said.

Mary Grace waved her hand impatiently. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”